Though you're still with me, I've been alone all along
by Skyknight1987
Summary: It's been five years since Bellamy saw his sister for the last time. Five years since she turned her back on him and walked out of the the throne room and out of his life. And now it's finally time to let go and say goodbye.


**A/N:** Mood music for this one is My Immortal by Evanescence. There is also a Bellamy and Octavia version on YouTube. I thought it was kind of fitting for the way things ended between them.

I love the Blake sibling dynamic, or rather I used to. It was hands down one of my favorite aspects of the show while it lasted, primarily because you so rarely get to see sibling relationships as one of the main plot points. And the Blakes' relationship was heartwarming and just so tragic at the same time, rooted as it was in death, loss and pain, as the very bond that had held them together all their lives was what finally broke them in the end. It's like a Shakespearean tragedy. So naturally I decided to add my own helping of angst to the mix.

I had actually written this piece for AO3. The piece over there is a handwritten version, complete with a Bellamy-esque scrawling handwriting and appropriately weathered post apocalyptic world parchment paper.

Unfortunately FF. net doesn't allow uploading of images into the story, only text that is frustratingly limited in its format. So I'm going to have to replace handwritten heartfelt words with clinical computer text and that takes away much of the authenticity and emotional appeal of the story.

Just to make it clear, the whole work is a single letter from Bellamy to Octavia several years after the City of Light event. **If you want the authentic handwritten letter experience, I'd really recommend checking out this story on AO3 for your first reading, just so that you can get the full effect of the feels without spoilers**. Same author and story names.

Warning: Heavy angst. Implied PTSD

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Dear Octavia,

This letter writing thing actually feels weirder than I thought it would, like something straight out of an Old Earth soap opera or some shit.

To be honest I'm not sure if you'll even receive this letter, or that you'll ever get around to actually reading it even if you do. And after everything that's happened between us, I can't say that I blame you. But in case you are, I just wanted to try to clear the air between us.

For the record, this was Clarke's idea, her way of getting me to talk to you without actually talking to you. I know that it's most likely a wasted effort, and I may never know if it actually did any good, but still, Clarke can be very persuasive when she wants to be.

She says that it's what she did when her dad died and that it'll give me some closure. Somehow I doubt it. Some scars stay for life, and I've got plenty of them. But I suppose it can't hurt to try. It worked for her. Maybe it'll work for me too.

I've always felt bad about the way we left things and it's been weighing on my mind a lot lately. Even more so than usual. There was so much that I wanted to talk to you about, so many things that I wanted to tell you, but never did. Things that I should have told you, but I didn't know how, and I keep thinking that if I had just done this or that or something else, then maybe

I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking when I started this letter, or what I'm hoping to accomplish. But I figured that maybe if I could just write all this stuff down on a piece of paper, I don't know, I thought I could at least get it out of my head or something. Then maybe I'd be able to stop going over that stuff over and over all the time.

That was the idea anyway. Turns out saying the words out loud and putting them in writing are two very different skill sets. Plus, my letter writing skills are a bit on the shitty side. So I don't even know how to begin. Or where.

I went looking through Arkadia's digital library for tips. There was a whole bunch of ebooks that went on and on about syntax and structure, and a million things that I didn't even know existed. All this just to write a damn letter. It's hard to believe there were people who used to actually study this crap for a living.

Fuck this. I'm just going to make it up as I go and see how that turns out. It's been a while since I wrote something longer than a few lines by hand, so my handwriting is probably going to look like chicken scratches. A lifetime of touch screens will do that to you I guess.

Still, feels dumb to waste perfectly good paper on some stupid letter when it feels like it would be so much easier if I could just go looking for you around camp and tell it to you in person. Or maybe at dinner tonight at our usual place, you and me, with you stealing bites from my plate like you always used to and chugging down a bottle of Monty's glorified paint thinner like there's no tomorrow.

Except that I won't be seeing you around camp again. Not at dinner, not at our usual spot, probably not ever. Doesn't feel like it though. I keep seeing you everywhere. Even after all this time I still can't fully wrap my head around the fact that you're not here.

I forget sometimes, that you're gone, and that you're not coming back. I don't know why. Maybe my head took a few hits too many. Maybe I'm just that messed up. But yes, sometimes I forget. And that's the worst part.

Sometimes if I'm distracted enough, or exhausted enough or if I just get really, really drunk, I forget. Just for little while. And just for that one little moment the pain goes away. And it's like you've been there all along. Like the past few years didn't happen.

Like I could just turn around and see you rubbing down Helios maybe, or chatting with someone, like you never left, and you'd catch me watching and roll your eyes, maybe toss out a barb or two about not being creepy, but you'd be smiling at me. Like you always do used to. Like I didn't fuck things up between us permanently.

And that is when I remember, and it's like being punched in the gut, every single damn time. Even after all this time it still hasn't gotten any easier.

Maybe it's not supposed to. Maybe it is what I deserve. I guess there's a certain poetic justice to that.

It makes me think of Jaha, and Jasper, and everyone else who took the damn chip. I can understand now why they would want to. If ALIE came to me now for the first time and offered to make all of the pain go away maybe I -

I wish I could say that I wouldn't take it. I really want to say that I wouldn't take it. But the truth is I'm just not sure. There are a lot of things that I'm not sure about anymore.

Jasper wanted ALIE gone as much as any of us, but she still managed to wear him down in the end. She got to Jaha, she got to Jasper, she got to a whole bunch of people in Arkadia and for a while she even got to Raven. I keep wondering how long I would have resisted if it was me in their place. Or if I even would have.

Clarke is sure that I would've. She tells me that I would've "fought her all the way to hell and back, if for no other reason, then because you always have to do everything the hard way, you stubborn asshole." Her words exactly. She smiles at me when she says it, like I'm worrying over nothing. And she always sounds so confident. As if there was never any doubt in her mind.

I guess she has a better opinion of me than I do. Because in my mind there always is.

I still get dreams like that every once in a while. Only thing, it's not Jaha who offers me the chip, its mom. And god help me, but when I wake up I can't figure out if they're the good dreams or the bad ones.

I told Clarke about it once. She didn't say anything. Barely spoke a word all day, but that night by the time she finally fell asleep, her arm was wrapped around me tighter than it usually is. Like she was afraid that I was going to disappear in the middle of the night or something.

She didn't talk about it, and I didn't bring it up again. I don't know what she was afraid of. It's not like I have anywhere else to go. Or anyone else left to go to.

Having Clarke around helps a lot. It's not perfect all the time, and it doesn't magically fix everything. But still, having her in my corner makes things easier to bear. Makes me feel less damaged. Raven drops by often. Having her around helps too, in its own way, but still it's not the same as having Clarke around. She has that kind of effect on people. Or maybe it's just me.

We have our share of arguments and there are days when I can't help wondering if she would be better off with someone else. But for some reason she's still with me, god knows why. It sure as hell isn't for the lack of options.

She's had no shortage of offers ever since the City of Light clusterfuck and she's turned them all down. I don't know why. I don't even know what she sees in me, let alone why she's stuck with me this long, but I'm not complaining. I've learnt by now to recognize a good thing when I see one.

Raven and I have a daughter. I don't know if you've heard, but she was born about a year after the thing with ALIE. We named her after mom.

I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know where you were or how to get in touch with you. Emori told us that they were talking about it in Polis because as it turns out Raven is the only known person to have fought ALIE off, so she's kind of a big deal around there.

Emori told us that you'd find out soon enough, if you hadn't already. But I don't know, I thought for sure that if you had heard maybe you'd drop by to see your niece at least, but I suppose not.

We talked about it, the three of us. Raven said that she wanted me and Clarke to be the ones to raise Aurora, well, Clarke more than me. She said she couldn't do it, that she didn't trust herself around children. Not even her own. And I couldn't do it all by myself. Hence, Clarke.

There are days when I'm surprised that Clarke even considered it in the first place, let alone the fact that she actually went through with it. Despite what she said it was still a lot to ask of her, raising a child that wasn't hers along with two people that she had a history with. Much of it painful.

More than that, I'm surprised that she chose to stay. She was so determined to make it work, with all three of us co-parenting Auri, even though Raven and I would have given her full custody if she had asked for it. She never asked though, and she seemed puzzled when Raven brought it up. Like she couldn't think of any reason why she would want to do that, and she couldn't understand why Raven thought that she would.

I'm just glad that she didn't pack up her stuff, take Auri, and just leave for greener pastures. Nobody would have held it against her if she had.

For a long time I'd wake up in the morning and the first thought that would come to my mind was that maybe today's the day. Today's the day when Clarke and Raven decide that Auri is better off without me and that they don't want me to be a part of her life anymore. Today's the day that Clarke tells me that she's leaving and that she's taking my daughter with her.

So far it hasn't happened.

We are all damaged in our own way, all three of us. But Clarke's the only one of us who hasn't let it define her. I can't think of anyone else that I'd rather trust Aurora with, and Raven agrees.

It's Auri's birthday tomorrow, four years complete, and Abby's got it in her head to blow it out of proportion. Things between her and Clarke still aren't okay. Not completely. Although at this point, it has more to do with the fact that they both blame themselves more than they blame each other. But they're getting there. Abby seems to think that the way to her daughter's heart is through her granddaughter. And I don't know. It seems to be working.

Clarke told us about these parties that her parents threw for her on her birthdays when she was a kid, and Abby seems keen on continuing the tradition. But me, Clarke and Raven, we're not all that keen. It's been a brutal few years and no one's felt much like celebrating. So for the past three years, it's mostly just been the three of us and Auri, plus Kane and Abby, and maybe Monty and Harper.

Everyone says Auri takes after her mother. I'm not sure which mother they're talking about most of the time. Opinion seems to differ depending on who's giving it. Doesn't matter to me either way, it's still a vast improvement over having her taking after me.

Auri may be Raven's daughter, but it's you that she reminds me of the most. And maybe it's just my imagination, but god, she is exactly like you were at her age, right down to the eye roll. Seriously, it's uncanny.

Or maybe it really is just my imagination.

Every time she tries those puppy dog eyes on me, or asks for a bedtime story, it makes me think of you, the way you used to be. The way we used to be, in another life.

And it's been happening more and more often the older she grows.

Every time I head out, I take a detour through the spot where you used to pitch your tent. It's empty now. It's been empty for quite a while. Other than a few broken sticks and a circle of stones where the firepit used to be, there's no sign that anyone used to live there. But I still keep looking for you there anyway. Don't ask me why.

Whenever I draw up the requisition lists I make a note to make sure that you're getting enough blankets and stuff before I remember that your name isn't in there anymore. But it still keeps happening every time I go over the lists.

Sometimes when I look over the crowd in the mess hall during breakfast and dinnertime, I get this odd feeling that there is something wrong with that picture, something missing that should be there, until I realize that it is you that I am looking for.

I guess old habits die hard.

Miller lost his foot a couple of months ago while we were out on a salvage trip. Stepped on a fucking landmine if you can believe that. Blew his foot clean off. But he was lucky, relatively speaking. We were able to get him back to camp before he bled out and Abby managed to save most of his leg, but it was close. Too close. Another couple more minutes and he would have bled out, Jackson said. As it is, it was touch and go for a while there.

Luckily his knee was mostly intact, so Raven was able to fix him up with a prosthesis. He won't be running drills any time soon, but it could have been worse. At least he can walk.

He swears that he can still feel his missing leg though, like an actual physical itch that won't go away. Phantom pain, Clarke explained. Something about severed nerves endings misfiring and sending signals to a part of the brain that doesn't realize that the limb on the other side isn't there anymore.

Maybe that's what this is for me too. Phantom pain. Echoes of sensation from a part of me that is no longer there.

It's my new normal, so I'm learning to live with it. Mostly because I don't have a choice. I've made my bed and now I have to lie in it. There is no way around it.

Maybe in another world I wouldn't have been dumb enough to trust Echo, or Pike for that matter. Maybe in that world things would have been different, and more people would have lived. May be in that world you and I wouldn't have been strangers.

I used to spend a lot of time, too much time, thinking about all sorts of what ifs and if onlys. What if I had shut down Pike before he got a foothold. What if I hadn't trusted Echo. What if I had stayed behind at Mount Weather. What if it had been me instead of Gina. What if I had thought to make a proper sweep of all the entrances and exits leading in and out. What if I had done a better job of securing the mountain. What if I had thought to look for a self destruct mechanism in advance. What if I had refused to allow moving into the facility before we had finished combing every inch of the place. What if I hadn't put my guard down. What if I had gone after Emerson when I had the chance. What if I had stopped Clarke from leaving.

It just wouldn't stop. No matter how often I went over it in my mind I still couldn't stop obsessing over it and it just kept getting worse. I couldn't sleep. I was barely eating. I nearly crashed the rover because there were a million what ifs churning inside my head all the damn time until I couldn't even tell what was real anymore.

This went on until Abby finally pulled me off duty and told me that I wasn't getting back to work until I got my shit together. Mandatory twice weekly counselling sessions with Dr. Abby Griffin. Yeah, that went about as well as you'd expect.

It helped though, I'll give her that. It- She helped a lot. For the first time in my life I could talk to someone without having to worry about letting something slip, or having to keep up appearances. Abby wasn't someone that I was responsible for. I didn't have any secrets that she didn't know about. And she didn't matter so much to me that I was worried about what she would think. That ship had sailed long before I met her. I literally had no possible reason to hide anything from her. Hell, I didn't even have anything left that was worth taking the effort to hide.

And god, you have no idea what a relief it was, just having someone to talk to without having a fucking Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. It was like I could finally breathe for the first time in as long as I could remember.

I can't even remember what I told her, or how much I told her, but we must have been talked for hours. I didn't even know that I had anything worth talking about that would take hours to say.

She said something about me spending all of my time inside my own head being a coping mechanism. Escapism, she called it. Apparently it's what people do when they're forced to face an uncomfortable fact that they don't want to admit. They make up their own realities inside their heads and disappear into them, even if only for a little while. Helps to numb the pain.

Everyone does it at some point or the other, she told me. The real problem occurs when people go in so deep that they can't tell the difference between imagination and reality. When that happens, the fantasy inside their heads starts to become their new reality and people just break away from the real world and go live inside their heads all the time. Like Jasper did. Like I was doing. My own personal City of Light.

I'm not going to lie, it was tempting. It would have been so easy, to stay in a world where I could rewrite the past and change reality to suit myself, where I could be whatever and whoever I wanted to be, where I could never be hurt, where I wouldn't have to worry about anyone because no one was depending on me for anything. Where everything that went wrong between us never actually happened.

But that is not the world that I live in. And all those things did happen.

I can't undo the things I've done no matter how much I wish I could. And nothing that I can do to make up for it will ever be enough. I know it, and I've accepted it.

This is my life now, for better or for worse. No rewinding the clock and no do overs. It is the only life I'll ever have. It became easier once I started to accept it.

Having Clarke around helps, I suppose. Makes things easier to bear. Keeps away the worst of it. Some days are better than others. On the good days, I'm mostly okay. On the bad days I -

If ALIE came to me on a bad day and gave me a choice, offered to take all the pain away, and all I had to do was forget everything about you, forget that you ever existed, I

Some days I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't take it. Other days I'm not sure what exactly it is that I'm trying to hold on to. Or why.

I've been hearing stuff. I guess you could call it that. Not a whole lot. We don't get a lot of visitors, and folks at Polis don't exactly go out of their way to chat with Skaikru. But we get the occasional independent trader and Niylah talks to Clarke whenever she visits the outpost. Murphy's girlfriend comes and goes. Sometimes she stays to chat.

They never talk about you. In fact they go out of their way to avoid any and all mention of you, but every once in a while someone or the other will let something slip, some small detail, some story or some vague rumor that involves you. Or maybe someone who looks like you. Or maybe it's someone else entirely who everyone else thinks is you for some reason. I can't be sure.

Some of the things are such complete and utter bullshit, that I don't even know why anyone would bother making stuff like that up.

Then there's the other stuff. Some of it sounds exactly the kind of thing you'd do. Some, I think, maybe it could be you. Maybe not. It's what I'd expect if it was anyone else in your place, but I can't quite imagine it being you. Maybe I'm just biased. Either way, I can't be sure.

And then there are the whispers and the hushed stories that nobody wants to talk about. The traders probably know more than they're letting on. They travel all over all year round. They're bound to pick up stuff. Sometimes when they're staying the night and they get drunk enough they let slip a detail or two. Emori might know some things, but every time I ask she just clams up. That look of unease on her face speaks volumes though. And if Nilyah's told Clarke anything, she's not sharing either.

At this point I'm not sure what to think. So I try not to think about it at all.

I've learnt the hard way not to keep beating myself up over questions that I don't have the answers to. Makes my life easier. It was harder at first. I just couldn't stop worrying, wondering where you were and how you were doing, if you were hurt or if you were even still alive. There was no word from you and no way for me to find out. No one who was willing to talk to me about you had anything to tell. Or if they did, they didn't want to talk about it.

And it was not knowing that was the worst part.

It wouldn't have been so bad if there was any way that I could have known for sure, even if it was for the worst. No matter how bad it would have been, at least then I would have known.

Not that I didn't try. At first I tried to get my hands on every scrap of information I could find, every vague rumor that had the smallest detail that I could use. I tried putting them all together forwards and backwards over and over again and again a million times trying to get a picture that looked like it might be somewhere close to the truth. And every single time I settled on something that I thought had to be you or couldn't possibly be you, based on what I thought I knew about the way you were, I'd remember that I don't really know you anymore.

So in the end all I got was a whole bunch of wild theories and no answers. And the only thing I had to show for it was a splitting headache and more sleepless night than I care to remember.

There was a time when I knew you better than I knew myself. I knew every expression on your face, every scowl and every smile. I knew all the things that made you happy and all the things that kept you awake at night, because they were the things that kept me awake too, long after I had finally gotten you to sleep.

It all feels like it happened so very long ago, to someone else, or maybe in another life. The Octavia that I used to know is long gone, and I have no idea who took her place. I'm not even sure if I'd even recognize you now if I saw you again.

So in a way, I guess you're finally dead to me too.

I finally know now how it feels, how I made you feel, now that I'm the one who's standing on the other side. And Octavia, I'm so sorry I put you through that.

Although I suppose that there's no reason why it should mean anything to you anymore.

Sometimes I wonder what Auri will think of me when she grows old enough to understand things and starts hearing stuff from people who aren't giving her the kid friendly version.

I wonder if she'll hate me. If she'll call me a monster and want nothing more to do with me for the rest of her life. Or if she'll forgive me. I don't know what would be worse, if she rejects me and cuts off all contact, or if she forgives me and accepts the burden of my sins.

Either way, it's out of my hands. She'll either accept me, or she won't. It's her choice. All I can do is tell her the whole story and let her make her own informed decisions, whatever they may be.

Which is why, someday, when she's old enough, I'll sit her down and tell her exactly what kind of a person I am, and what kind of things I've done.

And someday, when she's older still, I'll tell her about her Aunt Octavia.

I've avoided mentioning Lincoln so far because I didn't want to take the risk that you'd rip up the letter without reading it. That was also why I wanted to get everything else out of the way first before I got to this part. I figured that if you've stopped reading, at least I'll already have covered most of the things that I wanted to say to you. Although if you've made it this far, I'm hoping that you'll hear me out for a little bit longer.

There aren't words for me to tell you just how sorry I am about what happened to Lincoln, and what I did to make it happen. I know that's not enough, that nothing I can say or do will ever be enough. But it's all that I have.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about it, that I don't regret listening to Pike when I should have been listening to Lincoln. And I'll keep regretting it every single day for the rest of my life.

For a very long time I wished that it had been me instead of him. I would have switched places with him in a heartbeat if I could have. It would have been a better world, that had more of Lincoln and less of me in it. But then again, that's not the world that I live in either.

I only stopped wishing for that when Auri was born, and even then, only because it meant that Auri would never have existed. I can't wish my daughter undone, not now that I know her. Doesn't make any difference though. It's not as if it hurts any less now. There are still more than enough ghosts to keep me company.

I have no idea what is going to happen to this letter or where it is going to end up. For all I know it might end up at the bottom of a junk pile, or buried with its courier in an avalanche, or shredded to pieces and scattered to the winds, or just simply lost.

Somehow, when I try to imagine where the letter might go, none of the scenarios that I come up with involve you actually reading the damn thing. The closest one was with you carrying it around but never opening it, just keeping it around like a talisman that you don't want but can't bring yourself to throw away either.

That was the best case scenario.

Maybe it's because a part of me doesn't really believe that I'll get through to you, or that things between us will ever get better. It's like a foreign concept that I actually want, but still can't wrap my head around. I can't even bring myself to believe that I'll even know what's happened to you, let alone see you in person again.

It's like there's this huge wall separating us now, and no matter how hard I try to reach out, you just can't hear me. I don't know if it's because you don't want to hear me or because you simply can't. I don't even know if you're still there on the other side of the wall or if you've just walked away.

Hell, I don't even know if you're still alive anymore.

It feels like you're a million miles away from me, as distant and unreachable as the Ark that we left behind. Remembering you is like recalling something from a past life, an abstract idea that exists only in my head rather than a living, breathing tangible person. It's as if my life is divided between two universes, one with you in it and one without.

Just one more ghost out of a very long list.

I don't really expect anything to change between us because the Octavia who cared about me enough to listen is long gone. The Octavia that wants nothing to do with me and hates my guts just on principle is my new normal now.

If you're still reading this, well, that's that then. I'm finally done now. Everything I've wanted to say to you is in this letter, for you to consider or ignore as you will. If you choose to read it. All that's left to do is to wrap it up and seal it. It'll be on its way to Polis with the traders leaving tomorrow at dawn.

Indra promised me that she would see to it that you got this letter, if she could find you. She didn't seem very enthusiastic about her prospects in that department. Almost as if she doesn't actually expect that she'll be able to get in touch with you. Or even hear from you again for that matter.

She implied that you could be anywhere and it might be difficult to find a reliable source who could confirm having seen you. I told her that if this was her way of telling me that you could be dead, I didn't want to know.

Every day when I wake up, there's a part of me that thinks that maybe today is the day. Maybe today when I walk out of the camp, you'll be there, waiting, and you'll tell me that you don't hate me anymore, that you've forgiven me and that you want us to start over.

And a part of me will keep waiting for that moment until the day I die.

It's ridiculous, I know. I'll find a way to live with it, and maybe someday I'll be so used to it that I won't even notice it anymore. It'll just be one more feature of who I am.

I don't know where you are, and I don't know when or if you'll get this letter. I don't know if we'll ever see each other again. But wherever you are, I hope that you're happy. And I hope that you're having the life that you've always wanted.

And I want you to know that if there's ever anything you need from me personally, all you have to do is ask. Although I think I still know you well enough that I'm aware that you'd rather cut off your own head than accept anything from me ever again.

There's nothing that I can do about that. That's your decision to make. But just in case you change your mind, the offer's always open. For old times' sake.

May we meet again.

And if not, then let this be farewell.

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 **A/N:** So yeah, that happened. Took more time than I expected to get all the emotions just right as well. Most of my best works are all angst ridden pieces, but I think I may have topped myself on this one. I'll have to wait and see the comments.

Next one is about Bellamy in the intervening four years after the City of Light as he tries to come to grips with himself and searches for a new purpose for his life. And then after that, Octavia. She is always a challenge to write, and I'm looking forward to explore her walk on the wild side and where it'll take her and how far she'll be willing to go.

Reviews are chicken soup for the writer's soul. Do a good deed, leave a review.


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